Ohio lawmakers leery of Boehner's immigration proposals

Feb. 7, 2014

Adriana Escandon, center, a coordinator with New Immigrant Community Empowerment, speaks to a group of day laborers before a distribution of hot rice pudding and safety items Dec. 17 in Queens, N.Y. NICE provides services for day laborers and people who are undocumented, including safety training, English language classes and legal advice. 'Labor laws in this country make it possible that all these workers have the same rights, regardless of immigration status,' Escandon said. / Bebeto Matthews/AP

Written by

Deirdre Shesgreen

Gannett

WASHINGTON — If House Speaker John Boehner hoped to unify his GOP troops around an immigration reform proposal for 2014, the reaction among Central Ohio lawmakers doesn’t bode well. The response to Boehner’s immigration pitch ranged from conditional support to wary skepticism.

Boehner unveiled the immigration outline — what he and other GOP leaders have cast as a “statement of principles,” not a legislative proposal — at a House Republican retreat last weekend. The plan calls for strengthening border security, implementing an employment verification system to check workers’ legal status and making sure the current visa program is adequate to meet the needs of U.S. employers.

But it also tackles two more contentious issues, calling for:

• Granting citizenship to so-called “Dreamers,” immigrants who were brought here illegally as children by their parents.

• Giving legal status — but not citizenship — to other immigrants who are currently living in the U.S. illegally.

“Our national and economic security depend on requiring people who are living and working here illegally to come forward and get right with the law,” the GOP statement reads. It says immigrants could live in the U.S. legally and “without fear” if they pass background checks, pay fines and back taxes, learn English and meet other criteria.

The draft plan says that nothing should be done on legalization or citizenship until the border is secured. And it seeks to find a middle ground on the issue of how to deal with the estimated 11 million illegal immigrants in the country. Hard-line conservatives want no legal status for that group of immigrants while President Barack Obama and Senate Democrats want to provide a path to citizenship.

The Senate passed comprehensive immigration reform legislation last summer, which includes an arduous 13-year process for illegal immigrants to become citizens.

Rep. Steve Stivers, R-Columbus, said many of the House GOP principles make sense. But, he said, “I have concerns about things that people might think are amnesty.”

Asked about the proposal to give legal status but not citizenship to some undocumented workers, Stivers said, “I need to know exactly what that means.”

He also hedged when asked about the Dreamers provision, declining to say whether he could support it.

“I have some sympathy for children that have been brought here not of their choice,” he said. “That’s a very special circumstance. ... That’s as far as I’m going at this point.”

Similarly, Rep. Brad Wenstrup, R-Cincinnati, said he likes the draft statement’s emphasis on border security and fixing the visa program to reflect the needs of high-tech employers and American farmers. However, he seemed squeamish with the idea of granting citizenship to Dreamers and giving legal status to others.

“I’m not going to (state my position on legal status) because I don’t really know what that would look like,” Wenstrup said. “I’m more interested in securing our border right now.”

He said stopping illegal immigration at the borders is vital for national security, drug enforcement and to restore the public’s confidence in the immigration system.

“That, I’m willing to embrace right now for a lot of reasons,” Wenstrup said. And public opinion about how to deal with people living here illegally right now “may change,” he said, if Americans are confident illegal immigration has stopped.

Rep. Pat Tiberi, R-Westerville, said he was open to granting citizenship to young immigrants who were brought here illegally.

“These are innocent children who had no idea they were coming here (and who) in many cases, they have no other home,” he said. “They consider themselves American, so I’m open-minded about that.”

Tiberi said he supported giving some type of legal status to the estimated 11 million individuals now living here illegally. He noted that his parents immigrated to the United States from Italy, so he has an up-close perspective on the current debate.

“We’re not going to deport 11 million people,” Tiberi said. “We have de facto amnesty today for those 11 million people ... who live in the shadows and work in the shadows.”

However, Tiberi was skeptical that House Republicans would work toward any major immigration legislation soon, even border security where there’s broad consensus. He said Republicans don’t trust the Obama administration to fully enforce any agreement.

“There’s just a very, very big concern about this president’s trustworthiness when it comes to enforcing current law or a future law that he doesn’t really support,” Tiberi said, calling that the “biggest hurdle” to making progress on the issue.

Boehner conceded on Thursday that it would be tough to move immigration legislation in the House this year. He also placed the blame on the Obama administration, not the lack of consensus in his own ranks.

“I’ve never underestimated the difficulty in moving forward this year,” he told reporters at his weekly news conference. “The American people, including many of my members, don’t trust that the reform that we’re talking about will be implemented as intended to be.”